Clark Lea addresses whether Vanderbilt ‘expects’ to beat Alabama

A year ago, Vanderbilt shocked the college football world with a 40-35 upset of Alabama. Now the Commodores are looking to duplicate the feat, which would get the program off to a 6-0 start to the season.

Coach Clark Lea knows it won’t be easy. But he’s seen some growth from his team in the last year that indicates it’s certainly possible again.

“I think that it’s safe to say that our confidence has grown as we’ve experienced some results,” Lea said “Like I can’t be, I’m naive at times but not naive enough to believe that you can continue to build if you don’t experience the breakthrough moments. This game became important a year ago because that team was 2-2 and had kind of lost a little bit of that early momentum and needed to regain it. We had a heart-breaking loss to Georgia State, heart-breaking loss at Missouri and then a bye week. And we recharged.”

Of course, a year ago there were entirely different circumstances. Vanderbilt had yet to prove it could be a factor in the College Football Playoff race, led by transfer quarterback Diego Pavia.

Alabama, on the other hand, wasn’t quite sure how the post-Nick Saban era would go. Turns out it was harder to stay at that elite level than imagined.

“I remember that I kept saying last year that discipline, respect and spirit (were key),” Lea said. “We have to do the right things the right way, we have to play a certain way and margins are razor thin. That was part of the conversation. We got into a rhythm of playing that way. So as we realized the control and the power we had in the competitive moment we were able to replicate those performances, and we got enough to get to six and then seven in the bowl game.”

What kind of difference can a year make? Well, a win Saturday would clinch bowl eligibility in the minimal amount of time necessary to do so for the ‘Dores.

That’s something the team has been gunning for since Day 1. But Vanderbilt also has loftier ambitions.

“When we turned the page on the calendar and we started talking about those thin margins, we also said, ‘But they don’t have to be thin. We don’t have to have a program that plays perfectly. This is how we create, through formation in January, winter and spring, is create a program here, create a team that can go play free and realize we can play through our mistakes and have a chance to still win,'” Lea said.

“Last season was important for us in terms of getting some of those breakthrough moments to realize, ‘Hey, this is something that we can do.'”

This year has been different for Vanderbilt. Way different.

“I think this season has been about having the confidence to dominate, honestly,” Lea said. “To have a dominant mindset when we take the field. That’s a tangible shift that we’ve had here from within. I think this is Day 265 for this team together. So that shift has happened over those 265 days where we’ve built trust and built connection and built vision toward what we want. We need that confidence to show up for us on Saturday.”

The Alabama game on Saturday represents a similar opportunity as the one Vanderbilt snatched up a year ago. The chance to take a significant step forward as a program.

Once might have been an aberration. Twice, though?

“”At the end of the day, we’re going to play this game, we’re going to play our best football and come what may,” Lea said. “It’s just this is the teeth of the schedule and we have all our long-term goals within reach. We’ve just got to keep trying to play that optimal game that allows us to have results.”